Exotic, erotic and overextended

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An executive producer of the Exotic Erotic Ball has been charged with grand theft for allegedly writing checks to a band, a hotel and an emergency services company that bounced, a prosecutor said Monday.

Howard Mauskopf, 53, who runs Perry Mann Productions in Beverly Hills, wrote two checks for $5,000 to the manager of the band Missing Persons in October 2009 in advance of that year’s Exotic Erotic Ball at the Cow Palace in Daly City, authorities said.

Both checks bounced, and Mauskopf’s account was $12,000 in the red at the time, said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Mauskopf also used a fraudulent credit card to pay $908 for hotel rooms for the band, the prosecutor said.

The defendant also wrote three checks totaling $4,500 to the owner of an emergency medical service company, Wagstaffe said. Those checks bounced as well.

Mauskopf is free on $50,000 bail pending his trial in August on four counts of grand theft and two counts of writing bad checks.

Reached on his cell phone, Mauskopf said Monday, “I believe the charges are not founded. There are extenuating circumstances that play into this.”

He referred further inquiries to his attorney, Alex Bernstein, who said his client “did not commit a crime. He was an employee of a company that suffered a financial loss due to the way the 2009 Exotic Erotic Ball was run. Some were upset for not being paid what they expected to make. That is understandable and regrettable. But it also shows why this is a civil case, not a criminal one.”

The case comes at a difficult time for the Exotic Erotic Ball.

The 2010 event was to have taken place in Richmond after a long run on the other side of the bay. But poor ticket sales and cost overruns forced organizers to cancel the event.

The ball, a “celebration of flesh, fetish and freedom,” was first held in San Francisco 31 years ago and has long been associated with the city, even after its move to the Cow Palace in Daly City about 10 years ago.